LADINO

LADINO (Latino), or Judeo-Spanish, the spoken and
written Hispanic language of Jews of Spanish origin. It has no
connection with the Rheto-Romance dialect (Ladin) spoken in the Italian
Tyrol. Over the centuries, various names have been given to this
language composed of ancient Spanish dialects: Romance, Ğudezmo,
Spaniolish.
-Origins
The widespread view that the term "Ladino" is only applicable to the
"sacred" language of Bible translations and prayers, whereas the other
names are reserved solely for the spoken language, seems hardly tenable.
Moreover, the theory that Ladino originated as a specifically Jewish
language (as distinct from the dialects spoken in Spain) as early as the
13th or 14th century still lacks serious and
sufficient proof. There is no doubt that Jews interspersed their
dialects with words or expressions borrowed from Hebrew (particularly
terms and concepts connected with religion and ethics), and that they
preserved archaic words and obsolescent forms longer than
other people. However, it was only after the
Spanish Expulsion of 1492 that Ladino began to be a specifically Jewish
language. Although the Jews had been ejected from the Iberian Peninsula
and thus cut off from its language while this was still in the process
of evolution, they preserved the Spanish and Hispanic dialects that had
been spoken and written before Cervantes and the Golden Age, and which
basically reflected the phonetics, morphology, and syntax of the
14th and 15th centuries. A gap, wider or narrower
according to the country to which the refugees fled, began to appear
between the written and spoken language on the one hand and the language
of secular and rabbinical literature on the other. The language of Bible
translations and prayers, which remained more resistant to the words,
expressions, and syntactic patterns of the local tongue, became, in the
course of the centuries, less and less comprehensible to the masses.
(Moshe Lazar)
-The Topography of Ladino
The lack of contact between the Sephardim and Spain after 1492 led to a
situation in which the Sephardim did not make use of the standardized
norm of Spanish and allowed for the conservation of many rustic and
popular forms, rejected by the Castilian norm, as well as an
extraordinary geographical and social linguistic variation.
This, added
to the confluence of Sephardim of different regional and social origins,
allowed the development of independent koinés in Salonika and Istanbul –
supposedly also in Safed – evident from the end of the 17th
century (i.e., the formative period of Judeo-Spanish). The result was –
as the texts of the 18th century suggest – that the
Judeo-Spanish dialectal mixture was not dominated exclusively by
variants of a single region. Although Castilian features were selected
rather more frequently than non-Castilian, perhaps reflecting the
already higher prestige associated with Castilian variants in the late
15th century, selection of features typical of the other
peninsular regions was frequent. In the communities of the Ottoman
Empire, the linguistic contact with the local languages, especially with
Turkish and Italian, led to the adoption of numerous loans. From the
16th century the influence exercised by Hebrew intensified on
Judeo-Spanish and gave rise to the adoption of many words and
expressions. This influence is also reflected in some syntactic
structures. Finally, Judeo-Spanish shows a considerable degree of
innovation, especially in phonology and lexis. This view contradicts the
conventional opinion that Judeo-Spanish is intensely conservative in
nature, although it does not deny that Judeo-Spanish preserves some
features of 15th-century Spanish which have disappeared
everywhere else (i.e., the Classical period or Golden century of
Judeo-Spanish). As of 1839 Western culture – and France in particular –
were the main model of modernization in the Ottoman Empire, and the
Sephardi communities began to undergo westernization and secularization.
The influence of French through the Alliance Israélite Universelle from
1865, and to a lesser extent of Italian and modern Spanish, caused many
Sephardi intellectuals to adopt a purist attitude to their language
expressed by replacing Turkish and Hebrew elements by others of Romance
origin, and giving rise to what is called New-Judeo-Spanish.
In the Amsterdam and London communities, Jews continued to speak
Castilian and Portuguese, which were constantly enriched by contact with
the literature of the Iberian Peninsula and the contribution of
marranos who returned to Judaism. In Italy, too, Castilian
generally resisted tendencies to obsolescence and to massive linguistic
borrowings from other languages, such as Hebrew or Italian.
Leaving aside the differences between the dialects, one finds that,
between the 16th and 21st centuries, Judeo-Spanish
continued to be a Spanish language, which had incorporated an important
number of elements of Hebrew and other languages of contact. Owing to
another factor, namely, that Judeo-Spanish was used in territories in
which completely different languages are spoken, the Sephardim's
pre-1492 Judaized Spanish turned into a full Jewish language.
PHONETICS
All the varieties of Judeo-Spanish have inherited the Castilian vowel
system. The following important characteristics need to be emphasized
for the consonants:
a) Innovations:
1\. A certain tendency for word-initial e- to drop when
followed by s + consonant: sfuenyo
(esfuenyo \&LT; sueño = sleep, dream),
spalda (espalda = shoulder), skova
(escoba = broom), strečo (estrecho =
narrow).
2\. Alternance between the conservation of the labiodental fricative
f- and its aspiration when preceding the diphthong
we: fuego / huego (fire),
fuerte/huerte (strong), yo fue / yo hue
(I was, I went).
3\. The articulation of /ʎ / (both initial and median) has merged to /j/
and the yeismo has become universal in Judeo-Spanish:
yorar (llorar = to cry), yave
(llave = key), kavayeros (caballeros =
men), and then /j/ tended to disappear entirely when adjacent to the
front tonic vowels e and i: anío
(anillo = ring), kaveo (cabello = hair),
gaína (gallina = chicken), manías
(manillas = bracelets). Etymological -li- underwent the same
development: famía (familia = family).
4\. The phoneme /rr/ has merged to /r/: pero
(perro = dog), tyera (tierra = earth),
yo syero (yo cierro = I close) in most varieties.
5\. Initial consonant n- in front of the diphthong
we changes to m-: muestro (nuestro =
our), muevo (nuevo = new), muez (nuez =
nut).
6\. Almost all varieties of Judeo-Spanish merge (ɲ) and (nj):
anyo (año = year), panyo
(paño = knit).
7\. Second-plural ending of the verb has come to be marked by /š/, as a
result of assimilation between earlier final /s/ and de preceding
off-glide : kantaš (cantáis = you sing). This
marker was then extended to verbal endings where there had been no
off-glide: kantareš (cantaréis = you will sing),
savreš (sabréis = you will know), direš
(diréis = you will say).
8\. The initial group sue- often changed to
esfue-: esfuegra (suegra =
sister-in-law), esfuenyo (sueño = sleep, dream).
9\. The metathesis d-r instead of r-d is extremely
common, except in the Bosnian, Croatian, and West-Macedonian dialects:
vedre (verde = green), sodro (sordo =
deaf), pedrido (perdido = lost),
guadrar (guardar = to keep), por modre
(por amor de = for love of).
b) Conservations:
1\. Retention of the opposition /b/ and /v/, with articulation of the
second like labiodentals, but with change in the context they appear:
boka (boca = mouth), baka
(vaca = cow), alava (alaba = he
praises), kantava (cantaba = he sang),
bivir (vivir = to live).
2\. Retention of syllable-final /b/ with articulation of the second like
labiodentals, in process of vocalizing to (ṷ) in late medieval
Spanish: sivdad (ciudad = city), vivda
(viuda = widow), devda (deuda = debt).
3\. Retention of the contrast between voiceless and voiced units of the
Old-Spanish system of sibilant phonemes, but the followed development
differs from that of the rest of the Spanish-speaking world: (a) The
pre-palatal fricative pair /š/ and /ž/ was retained: kaša
(O.Sp. caxa = box), mužer (O.Sp. muger
= woman), The apical-alveolar fricative pair /s/ and /z/ (\&LT; /ц/ and
/ǳ/) has merged to the dental fricative pair /s(/ and /z(/:
paso (O.Sp. passo = step), kaza (O.Sp.
casa = house); alsar (O.Sp. alçar = to
raise), dezir (O.Sp. dezir = say).
4\. As in the popular speech, syllable-final /s/ is palatalized to /š/
before velar (k): moška, buškar, kaška (fly, search for,
rind).
5\. Retention of the reinforced diphthong-initial (gṷe), restricted to
rural use in Spain: guevo, gueso (huevo, hueso =
egg, bone).
6\. As in the popular speech, metathesis -ld- instead of
-dl- in the second and third persons of imperative followed
by personal pronouns: dalde (dadle = give
him/her), dizilde (decidle = say him/her),
yamalde (llamadle = call him/her).
7\. As in the popular speech, apocopated by the tonic object personal
pronouns of the first and second person when these appear followed by an
atonic personal pronoun: mo lo dišo (nos lo dijo =
he/she said us it), mo la dites (nos la diste =
you gave us it), vo lo digo (os lo digo = I say
you it), vo los do (os los doy = I give you them),
vo se tiene de contar (os lo hay que contar = it
is necessary to tell you), la kaza mo la estan fraguando
(nos están construyendo la casa = they are building us the
house).
c) Non-Castilian features:
1\. The variants selected in Judeo-Spanish did not always conform to the
Castilian diphthongized pattern: ponte (puente =
bridge), sorte (suerte 'clase' = kind),
porto (puerto = haven), tutano
(tuétano = marrow), preto (prieto
'negro' = black), grego (griego = Greek),
governo (gobierno = govern).
2\. Maximal differentiation of the three vowels /i/, /a/, /u/ found in
unstressed syllable in those varieties of Judeo-Spanish spoken in
Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia and West Bulgaria: prizenti
(presente 'regalo' = gift), kazada
(casada = married), puderozu (poderoso
= powerful).
3\. Retention of the opposition /b/ and /v/: haver (=
partner, associate, from Heb. חבר), haber (= news, from Turk.
haber).
4\. Retention of initial labiodentals /f/ in the West Judeo-Spanish
varieties, as is also the case in Portuguese, Galician, Leonese,
Aragonose, and Catalan: fijo (hijo = son),
forno (horno = oven), fuyir
(huir = flee).
5\. Retention of pre-palatal fricative pair /š/ and /ž/.
6\. Adoption of seseo: kasar (cazar =
to hunt), (f)azer (hacer = to do),
mosa (moza = servant, maiden).
7\. Judeo-Spanish mst frequently inherits the string /mb/ as in
Portuguese and Catalan, contrary to Castilian preserved /m/:
lombo (lomo = back), palomba
(paloma = dove), lamber (lamer = to
lick).
MORPHOLOGY
The following distinctive characteristics are of note:
a) Innovations:
1\. Certain nouns in which the gender was not determined in Old-Spanish
become feminine: la vientre (stomach), la azeyte
(oil), la honor (honor), la alma (soul).
2\. The third-person possessive su is marked for the number
of the possessor: su livro (su libro = his book),
sus livro (su libro = their book).
3\. Creation of numerous verbal periphrases and their subsequent
lexicalization. It is necessary to distinguish the following
constructions:
(a) Romance constructions: ser demenester (to be necessary),
dar crédito (think to be true), darse rižo (to be
not deprived of any thing).
Hybrid constructions:
(1) Castilian verb + Hebrew complement: dezir tefilá (to
pray), azer ḥesed (to practice charity), hazer
milá (to circumcise), kortar din (to sentence),
entrar la dimión (to have a slight suspicion), dar
gemer (to decide), azer eḥreaḥ (to be necessary),
salir de ḥová (complying an obligation), repozarse el
daat (to become tranquil), dar kavod (treating with
respect), dar ḥaftaná (to manage).
(2) Castilian verb ser (to be) + Hebrew participle: ser
patur (remaining free), ser meḥalel (to profane),
ser muḥaḥ (to be compelled), ser mekadeš (to
sanctify), ser maskim (to accept, to agree, to consent),
ser soḥe (to deserve).
(3) Castilian verb + Turkish complement: azerse buz (to
freeze), azer dikat (to putting attention or to take into
account or consideration), ir al dip (to examine thoroughly),
estar dirdir (to speak without interruption), azer
ğefá (to refuse), ečar lakirdí (to chatter),
azer ḥatir (to satisfy), bever tutun (to smoke).
b) Retentions:
1\. Conservation of the ordinal numerals from the number four ending
with –eno: kuarteno (= 4th),
sinkeno (5th), seženo (6th),
seteno (7th), očeno (8th),
noveno (9th), dezeno (10th),
onzeno (11th), dozeno
(12th), trezeno (13th),
katorzeno (14th), kinzeno
(15th).
2\. Conservation of second person forms of polite address:
vos (with second-person plural verb), el/eya, su
mersed (with third-person
plural verb) instead of the more modern Castilian usted
(you).
3\. The non-standard pronominal forms of the Castilian kon mi
(with me), kon ti (with you), kon si (with
himself) were preserved instead of the cult forms: conmigo,
contigo, consigo.
These tonic forms appear even in the apodosis of the comparative
sentences: es mas grande de mi (es más grande que
yo = he is higher than I), el es mas riko de ti
(él es már rico que tú = he is richer than you).
4\. The reflexive pronoun -se, which is elsewhere unmarked
for number, has the form -sen when its referent is plural as
in rural Castilian: viendosen, yamandosen (viéndose,
llamándose = being seen, being called).
5\. The first-person singular present indicative of the verbs
estar, ser, dar, ir was preserved: (e) stó,
so, do, vo (estoy, soy, doy, voy = I am, I give, and I
go).
6\. Conservation of the Old-Castilian future verbal forms with
metathesis –rn (\&LT; -n'r): terná (he/she
will have), vernemos (he/she will come).
7\. Conservation of the non-standard forms of the Castilian imperative
plural without final /d/: mostrá, keré, avrí.
8\. Almost unique preservation of the affectionate diminutive formed
with the suffix –iko: kazika, gatiko (casita,
gatito = a small house, a small/young cat).
c) Non-Castilian features:
1\. Hypercharacterization of gender is frequent in the case of
adjectives as in the eastern languages of Spain: popular,
-a (popular), spesial, -a (special),
nasyonal, -a (national), maternal, -a
(maternal).
2\. The use of Spanish dialectal kualo, kuala as in Leonese
and Aragonese, instead of Castilian cual.
3\. First person preterit forms of -ar verbs have developed
the ending /–i/, /-imos/ (/-é/, /-emos/ in Aragonese): avlí,
avlimos (hablé, hablamos = I/we spoke).
SYNTAX
a) Innovations:
1\. Duplication of the direct and indirect post-verbal complement
through pronominal clitics placing before the verb: lo sakó a el
hamor del pozo (sacó al burro del pozo = he removed the
donkey from the well), lo mira a Ḥanan (mira a
Janán = he looks to Hanna), lo vemos al Rabi Asriel
asentado (vemos al rabino Asriel sentado = we see the
rabbi Asriel seated), …avisimos ke vino a vižitarlo a Avram
(ya informamos que vinó a visitar a Abraham = we report that
he came to visit Abraham).
2\. The gerund siendo has been converted into a causal
conjunction (= since, seeing that): i siendo no topo, tomo él un
papel (and since he did not find him, he took he a role), i
sierto el ikar es de tener kargo de los proves, siendo no tienen modo de
reğirsen (certainly the essential thing is to lend aid to the
poor, since they do not have possibilities to do for themselves).
3\. The preposition a was imposed on all direct-objects noun
phrases instead of the Castilian use in which the contrast between
personal direct object is marked by the preposition a, and
non-personal direct objects are marked by absence of preposition:
yo le rogo a mi amigo viežo, a ke mi pedrone el pekado
(yo le ruego a mi viejo amigo que me per-done el pecado = I
request from my old friend that he forgive me for the sin), Mošiko
ve a la skola (Moisés ve la escuela = Moses sees the
school).
b) Retentions:
1\. In sentences with two atonic clitics, one in the function of direct
complement (first or second persons) and the other as indirect
complement (third person se), they appear immediately before
the verb as in popular Old-Castilian: Este livro me se pedrio tres
vezes (este libro se me perdió tres veces = this book
was lost (by) me three times); Tu vas azer todo lo ke te se
dize (harás todo lo que se te dice = you will do
everything that (he) tells you).
2: For the existential haber Judeo-Spanish preserved the
agreement of number between verb and complement, which is then
constructed as the verbal subject: uvo una fortuna en la mar
/uvieron dos fortunas en la mar (hubo una /dos
tormenta(s) en la mar = there was a storm/there were two storms in
the sea).
We can say that foreign influences have increasingly affected word order
and sentence structure, so that Judeo-Spanish took on its own
personality more distant from Spanish than its other varieties.
VOCABULARY
Aside from dialectal differences in vocabulary, which are in fact slight
– several phenomena are characteristic of the language as a whole:
a) The preservation of hundreds of archaic Spanish words, some of which
have disappeared from use in modern Spanish: dekolgar (to
depend), ladinar (to translate), akonantar (taking
precedence), akavidarse (to take precautions),
abolar (to die), feúzia (confidence),
barragan (hero), dias de kútio (days of the week),
ainda (still), atemar (to weaken),
enmentar (to mention, to remember), and others of which have
changed their meaning among the Sephardim: ambezar
(avezar 'be accustomed to' = to study), eskapar
('to flee' = to finish), estağar ('creak' = to separate),
kara ('face' = cheek), karruča ('pulley' = wheel).
b) The substitution of several Castilian words by parallel terms
borrowed from the other Ibero-Romance languages (Aragonese, Leonese,
Catalan, or Portuguese) during the processes of koinéization in
16th and 17th centuries: demandar
(pregunta = to ask), abokarse (doblarse
= to bow), solombra (sombra = shadow),
kazal (aldea = village), lonso
(oso = bear), fortuna (tormenta =
storm), melsa (bazo = spleen), defender
(prohibir = to forbid), desmersar (hacer las
compras = to go shopping), avantaže (ventaja =
advantage), koğeta (colecta = collect),
demudarse (palidecer = to turn pale),
enguyo (náusea = nausea), mešerikear
(murmurar = to gossip), feder (oler mal
= to stink), bafo (aliento, soplo = breath),
monturo (basurero = rubbish dump), fado
(destino, suerte = destiny), resfolgo
(descanso = rest).
c) Specialized terminology and special forms of the Spanish Jews from
non-Hebrew and Aramaic origin have been preserved over the centuries:
meldar (Old Gr. verb meletáō), means 'to study the
Bible,' 'to read the Bible,' and, by extension, simply 'to read,'
Ayifto (Gr. Aígyptos = Egypt), alḥad
(first day, Sunday) was borrowed from Arabic instead of Spanish
domingo (lat. (dies) dominicus 'the
Lord's Day'); el Dió (God), instead of Dios with
its feeling of a plural, serkusir (circuncidar =
to circumcise), podestar (regir, gobernar, tener el
poder = to govern), alemunyarse (Heb. ʾalman
= to become a widower, to mourn) from which are also derived
lemunyoso, lemunyo, (a)kunyadar (Sp.
cuñada = to fulfill the command of levirate).
d) Also Hebrew and Aramaic words and expressions that are preserved,
many of them changed their original meaning: vatran (ותרן =
generous), ḥaḥam (חכם 'wise' = wise, but also rabbi),
penuyah (פנויה 'free' = prostitute), kal (קהל
'gathering, congregation' = synagogue), ḥamin (חמין 'warm' =
meat and vegetable stew cooked overnight and eaten for Sabbath),
ma'alah-matah (מעלה ומטה 'up-down' = approximately, more or
less). The use of Hebrew and Aramaic words and expressions in
Judeo-Spanish increased specially after the beginning of the
18th century following the attempt of the rabbis to draw the
people near to Jewish knowledge.
e) The substitution of hundreds of Spanish words, either unknown or
forgotten over the centuries, by parallel terms borrowed from the local
languages with which the Sephardim came in contact. However, it should
be emphasized that certain terms were transferred from one community to
another, by way of commercial or cultural relations, whereas others
remained peculiar to particular communities. These foreign words derive
mainly from Turkish: merak (depression, anxiety),
merakli (melancholy), šaka (şaka =
joke), yardan (yerdan = necklace),
čanta (çanta = bag), pačas
(paça = legs), diz (knee), kolay
(easy); French: randevu (rendez-vous =
appointment), apremidi (après-midi = afternoon),
surpriz (surprise = surprise), kuartier
(quartier = district), afer (affaire =
matter, business); and Italian: kapo (capo =
chief), dover (dovere = duty), perikolo
(pericolo = danger), senso (sense),
dopio (doppio = double), dunke
(dunque = since, because, then); and to a lesser extent from
Greek, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, or German. Moreover in the
Judeo-Spanish spoken in Israel, several words have been borrowed from
Local Arabic, some from Yiddish, and in the last 150 years from Modern
Hebrew.
Many of the borrowed words have been totally integrated in the
Judeo-Spanish linguistic system: e.g., from Hebrew: darsar
(דרש = preach), badkar (בדק = examine), diburear
(דיבור = to talk gloomy), desmazalado (מזל = unlucky),
mazalozo (= lucky), sekanozo (סכנה = dangerous),
ḥenozo (חן = graceful), seheludo (שכל =
intelligent), ḥanupozo (חנופה = flattering),
garonudo (גרון = gluttonous); from Turkish
bitirear (bitir {mek} = to finish),
burear (bur {mak} = to cause an acrid
feeling in the mouth), čekinear (çekin
{mek} = to hesitate), berekyat (bereket
= plentifulness), dayanear (dayan {mak}
= to bear, to support), kulanear (kolla
{mak} = to use, to employ), merekearse
(merak = have a falling out), merekiozo
(depressed), tenekyero (teneke = tinsmith),
(z)ulufias (zülüf = sidelocks); or from
French: dezirar (désirer = desire, want),
korijar (corriger = to correct),
devuarse (se dévouer = to dedicate oneself),
foburgo (\&LT;faubourg = suburb), malorozo
(malheureux = unhappy), buto (but =
aim), moyenes (moyens = means).
f) Conversely, some Hebrew and Turkish suffixes are borrowed to create
new words: ladronim (Sp. ladrón + -im =
robbers), ermanim (Sp. hermano + im =
brother), balderim (Turk. balιr + im =
departure, flight, retreat), serenlik (Sp. sereno
+ lik = serenity), benadamlik (בו אדם +
lik = human quality), ḥaḥam bašilik (חכם + Turk.
baş 'head, chief ' + lik = chief rabbinate),
sekanalik (סכנה + lik = danger),
zonuluk (זנות+ luk = debauchery, prostitution),
safekli (ספק + li = doubtful, suspicious),
sekanali (סכנה + li = dangerous),
goralği (גרל+ ci = fortune-teller).
DIALECTS
However, phonetic and lexical differences – less morphological and
syntactic – bear witness to the following dialectal areas:
a) Phonetic areas: Central area (Turkey and Greece
communities) with a stronger linguistic norm; and Peripheral area more
flexible with the European area (Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia,
Serbia, and Bosnia communities), and the Israelian
Judeo-Spanish influenced by the Hebrew spoken by Oriental and
Maghrebian Jews and Local Arabic.
b) Lexical areas: East Area (communities in Turkey, Israel,
and West-Bulgaria) developed from de Istanbul koine; Central
area (with Salonika and the communities situated in East-Bulgaria,
Romania, Serbia, and Macedonia) developed from de Salonician koine; and
West area (communities in the Adriatic coast and in Croatia
and Bosnia) more influenced by Portuguese and Italian loans.
The development of the dialectal areas in Judeo-Spanish took place from
the 16th century and does not have a relation with the
regional origin of its speakers.
SYSTEM OF WRITING
For several centuries the Hebrew alphabet has been in general use for
the writing of Judeo-Spanish. The unvocalized Rashi script was most
often used both for religious texts and secular literature, and was also
the basis of the cursive script. However, from the 16th
century onward, many books were printed in square lettering and were
completely vocalized. Few books were printed in Latin characters, and it
was only in the 20th century that the use of the Latin
alphabet increased, particularly in journalism, without however
affecting the circulation of newspapers and books in Rashi script. In
the early 21st century an official spelling does not exist to
write the Judeo-Spanish with the Latin alphabet, and its speakers
usually use the system of the national language of their respective
countries. In Israel, especially after the constitution of the National
Authority of the Ladino and its Culture in 1997, the one phonetic
spelling is that of the magazine Aki Yerushalayim
(AY) that enjoyed popularity. Also the Sephardim of
Anglo-Saxon countries make use of this spelling. Yet, some Spanish
researchers, especially those affiliated with
the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones
Científicas (CSIC), favoring the integration of the
Sephardi variety in the Hispanic world, prefer a Spanish spelling, to
which they add diacritic signs to mark the differences of pronunciation
between the two varieties, in order to transcribe the Rashi script:
AY's spelling: i se kijo azer djudio, i antes de
azerse djudio kijo informarse a saver kuala uma es la ke es estimada en
el otro mundo… i fue dito Onkelos kon echiseria i lo izo alevantar a
Tutus arasha…
CSIC's system of transcription: y se quis̀o haćer
ĵudió, y antes de haćerse ĵudió quis̀o informarse a saber cuála umá es
la que es estimada en el otro mundo… y fue dito Onquelos con hechićería
y lo hiźo alevantar a Titus ha Rašáÿ…
When the Nazis exterminated many communities in which Judeo-Spanish had
been the principal means of communication, Judeo-Spanish became almost
irrevocably condemned to gradual disappearance. Judeo-Spanish–speaking
Jews who immigrated to Israel and other Western countries adopted the
language of the country and for their children Judeo-Spanish became only
a residual language. Nevertheless, recent years have seen something of a
Sephardic vernacular renaissance. Altogether some 200,000 people still
speak or understand it.
The interest of linguists in the study of the Judeo-Spanish language
began in the late 19th century, but it was only in the
20th century that most serious and detailed researches were
undertaken. In the last two decades the study of Judeo-Spanish in the
universities, especially in Israel and Germany, became more important to
the point of becoming a university discipline.
(Aldina Quintana (2nd ed.)
A Dictionnaire de Judéo-Espagnol by Joseph Nehama and Jesus
Cantera was publishd by the Instituto Benito Arias Montano, of the
Estudios Hebraicos Sefardies y de Oriente Proximo (Madrid, 1977).
-Ladino Literature
The literature written in Ladino is not to be confused with that
produced in Spanish by the western Sephardi communities, mainly that of
Amsterdam. In contrast to the vast majority of the observant Spanish
Jews who were exiled to North Africa and the Ottoman Empire in the
15th century, the marranos , assimilated into Spanish
culture and more integrated within Christian society, left Spain
gradually during the 16th and even the 17th and
18th centuries, many of them settling in Western Europe.
These elements maintained direct contact with the civilization of their
old country. Not only are their religious, philosophical, scientific,
and literary works not written in Ladino, but they express an entirely
different spirit from that found among the "Oriental" Sephardi thinkers
and writers.
RELIGIOUS LITERATURE
In contrast to secular literature which, with the exception of the
romancero, began to flourish in Ladino only in the
19th century, Ladino religious literature had its origins in
pre-expulsion Spain. It was only in exile, however, that it really
developed.
The religious literary tradition began between the 13th and
15th centuries with a series of Bible translations, of which
a few unique specimens have been preserved as manuscripts in Spain (such
as the Mss. I-j-3, I-j-4, and
J-II-19 of the Escorial Library). All these texts are,
however, written in Latin characters. This tradition was revived
successfully after the expulsion, particularly in Constantinople and
Salonika, and the translations produced in these centers were adopted,
and later revised here and there in the Sephardi Diaspora (Venice,
Leghorn, Pisa, Amsterdam, Vienna). These translations, written in Hebrew
characters and having their own vocabulary and syntax, are clearly
distinguishable from the Spanish Bibles produced by Christians. Over the
centuries, they helped to mold the written language of the Sephardim.
The major original translations include the Book of Psalms
(Constantinople, 1540); the Pentateuch (Constantinople, 1547); the
Prophets (Salonika, 1572); and a complete translation of the Bible by
Abraham ben Isaac Assa (Constantinople, 1739–45), which became the most
popular text among the Sephardi communities of the East. To these
translations should be added the anonymous glossary known as Ḥeshek
Shelomo (Venice, 1588).
Within Ladino religious literature a separate subdivision is constituted
by a series of works adapted from Hebrew: books of biblical
interpretation and of ethics, together with manuals of religious ritual
and prayer books. These include Baḥya ibn Paquda 's Ḥovot
ha-Levavot, isaac aboab 's Menoratha-Ma'or,
Joseph Caro's Shulḥan Arukh , and elijah b. benjamin
ha-Levi's Shevet Musar. The original works Reğimiento de
la Vida by moses almosnino (1564) and Ẓorkhei
Ẓibbur by Abraham Assa (1739) come into the same category. Thus,
two centuries after the expulsion, Ladino literature comprised a very
rich collection of adapted and original works in all spheres of creative
activity, among them poetry, mysticism, biblical exegesis, history,
medicine, and ethics. From the 18th century onward, the
number of these original works increased steadily, but only part of the
output has been preserved. The masterpiece of this ethical-religious
literature, and one which has had a profound influence on the masses to
the present day, is the Me-Am Lo'ez , an encyclopedic work begun
by jacob culi in 1730 and continued by other writers after his
death. This thesaurus of Sephardi knowledge draws its inspiration from
the traditional sources of Jewish thought: Mishnah, Talmud, Midrash, and
Kabbalah.
-Ladino Poetry
Original poetic works in Ladino are extremely limited, and there is no
doubt that this art was not as popular among the Levantine Sephardim as
it was among the Sephardim of the West. However, some poetic tradition
did exist, exemplified preeminently by two important works: the
14th-century Proverbios morales of Shem Tov
(santob ) de Carrion and the Poema de Yoçef, comprising
some 300 quatrains, which must have been composed at the beginning of
the 15th century. The latter poem, of which there is a
fragmentary manuscript in Cambridge, England, and a complete version in
the Vatican, is an adaptation
from the Midrash and the sefer ha-yashar of the story
of Joseph and his brethren. This is written in a strophic and metric
form which points to a merging of a medieval Spanish structure (the
"cuaderna via") and that of the Hebrew piyyutim.
In Ladino poetry the Poema de Yoçef has no less importance
and literary value than the Poema de Yuçuf written in Spanish
in Arabic characters, which is today an integral part of Spanish
literature. A better-known and more popular Ladino poem on the same
subject is Coplas de Yoçef Ha-Ẓaddik, written by Abraham de
Toledo in 1732. This work, which comprises some 400 quatrains, had its
own special melody and was sung on the festival of Purim. Two quite
distinct versions have been preserved: one from Constantinople (1732),
and another from Belgrade (1861) composed on the lines of the Salonika
version (1755) which is now lost. Among minor poetic works there are
various songs and poems, very variable in quality, devoted especially to
Jewish festival themes. Many of them are connected with Purim, and these
compositions, both serious and humorous, are to be found scattered in
collections and almanacs under the title Coplas de Purim. The
genre flourished in the 19th century.
THE ROMANCERO
The Ladino romancero occupies a place of its own in the
literature and everyday life of the Sephardim. When they left Spain, the
Jews retained in their oral tradition innumerable "romances" – popular
and traditional Spanish ballads – which had been widely diffused
throughout the country in the course of the 14th and
15th centuries. (For musical tradition in the
romancero, see below.) The melodies that accompanied these
romances and made them easier to memorize also contributed to their
preservation and to their transmission, from the 16th to
20th centuries, through all the communities of the eastern
Sephardim and North Africa. Since the romancero was a
"popular" genre, it hardly existed in western Sephardi centers. The
Ladino romancero is largely a continuation and an adaptation
of the Spanish romancero of both the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance. It includes some romances which are still to be found in
collections of Spanish poetry and others which did not survive in the
Iberian Peninsula or which are variations or adaptations, as well as
many original romances and songs of later composition. The general
subject matter of the Ladino romancero has sometimes been
enriched by new Spanish romances composed in the late 15th
and 16th centuries. The subject matter varies according to
the distance of a given Sephardi community from Spain; thus the romances
of North Africa differ considerably from those of the Ottoman Empire.
The common characteristic, however, is what may be called the
"dechristianization" of the traditional romancero. Jews
tended to eliminate from the romances any elements which implied
adherence to Christian beliefs and ceremonies. Only a few North African
romances imported from the Peninsula at a much later date still retain
specifically Christian motifs or images. Lapses of memory or
interpolations sometimes resulted in either a muddled or amplified
version of a traditional romance. The newly composed
romanceros are on the whole looser in form and inferior in
quality to the traditional romances. Since the romances were transmitted
orally, the Ladino romancero has only comparatively recently
acquired a written form which is still far from complete. However, it
already represents a very rich and valuable corpus of poetry and
folklore.
OTHER SECULAR WORKS
Apart from the romancero, Ladino secular literature from the
19th century onward is characterized by a preponderance of
translations or adaptations of plays and novels from world – and
especially French – literature. These translations stimulated Sephardi
writers to produce a considerable output of original plays, love
stories, historical novels, and other works in Ladino. The literary
quality of the later Ladino works is on the whole mediocre and most of
them have been completely forgotten.
Ladino folktales and proverbs, capable of filling several volumes, have
not yet been collected or adequately studied.
(Moshe Lazar)
-In the 19th and 20th Centuries
With the decline of learning in the mid-19th century among
the Jews in the Ottoman Empire, secular works in Ladino started to
appear. The first secular works in Ladino were of a didactic character,
consisting mostly of historical works, biographies, and travel books.
With the liberalization and secularization of Jewish society in the
Ottoman Empire in the second half of the 19th century,
together with the general broadening of culture there and the marked
influence of Western culture upon the Jews especially through the medium
of the Alliance Israélite Universelle , the need was felt for
the emergence of a secular literature in Ladino in all literary genres.
The first attempt to fill this vacuum was the creation of Ladino
newspapers . These intensified the demand for such a literature.
With the aim of propagating Western culture among Jews, young educated
people undertook to translate and adapt plays and novels from general
and especially French literature. The first translated novels were
published in the 1880s and their number grew rapidly, only very few
original novels being written. Between 1901 and 1938 over 150 novels
were translated. These translations were mostly from classical and
modern authors as well as from Hebrew and Yiddish writers such as Shalom
Aleichem, I.L. Peretz, and Shalom Asch. These novels, often adapted
rather than translated, were usually first published as feuilletons in
the Ladino press. Although the original intention of their publishers
was educational, they commonly produced love stories and chapbooks,
usually appearing without mention of their author or translator. The
chief translators were Isaac Gabai, David Fresco, Victor Levy, Alexander
ibn Ghirat, Jean Florian, and Elijah Carmona, who revived the Ladino
language by creating its modern literary style. They also published
original works, mostly novels and biographies of Jewish philanthropists
and historical personages, as well as many popular books on historical
or scientific subjects (e.g.,
Historia Judia Universal in 13 vols., and Tesoro del
Judaesmo by H.Y. Chaki). With the emergence of the Zionist
movement, nationalistic themes began to appear in Ladino literature,
expressed in original novels and plays on purely Jewish themes
(especially by Jacques Luria), and often depicting Jewish life and types
on the model of Shalom Aleichem and Mendele Mokher Seforim.
Ladino dramatic literature also appeared as a new genre at the close of
the 19th century. Unlike the fiction it developed essentially
around Jewish themes, though plays by Molière and Shakespeare were also
translated. Those who distinguished themselves especially as playwrights
were Jacques Luria, Yakim Behor, Joseph Djaen, Bahor Azario, and Abraham
Capon. Of special interest are the books and pamphlets published in
Ladino by the Protestant mission in the Ottoman Empire. Most of them
deal with the New Testament or criticize Judaism and the Talmud. For a
few years (from 1825) the mission even published an illustrated magazine
in pure Spanish written in Hebrew characters, featuring articles on
scientific and historical subjects, including Judaism. With the decline
of Ladino as a spoken language and its replacement by Turkish and other
tongues, Ladino became devoid of any use as a literary medium and was
hence discarded as such. The virtual liquidation of the Sephardi
communities of the Mediterranean area, partly through Nazi persecution
(apart from Turkey) and partly through immigration to Ereẓ Israel and
elsewhere, has contributed to the virtual extinction of Ladino
literature, though newspapers in Ladino still appear in Turkey.
(Henri Guttel)
-The Musical Tradition of the Judeo-Spanish Romancero
Sephardi secular life has always been richly imbued with traditional
songs and paraliturgical hymns to celebrate the varied phases of the
life cycle, social functions, and ceremonial gatherings. Among the
traditional songs are the cherished and orally transmitted Castilian
Romances ("ballads") which Sephardi women, in particular, sang at every
occasion, and even during their daily household and infant-rearing
chores.
The importance of the romancero or ballad tradition rests
primarily on its retention of archaic linguistic features and
preservation of themes that had long become extinct on the Iberian
Peninsula. The postulation of a musical link between the extant
Judeo-Spanish and the much older Peninsula ballad traditions on the
basis of their strong textual ties, which gave rise to many scholarly
and even romanticized notions concerning their melodic connections with
15th- and 16th-century Spanish cancioneros and
vihuelista manuals, has proven nothing more than speculative.
Within decades after the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1492) and
from Portugal (1497), contacts with the Peninsula became increasingly
sporadic, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean region where relations
among the widely scattered Sephardim communities slackened, resulting in
the isolation of particular communities which increasingly absorbed the
musical influences of their new environments.
From about 1700, the stylistic differences between the Eastern (Turkish,
Greek, and Balkan) and Western (North African, mainly Moroccan)
repertoires had probably begun to develop. Because of Morocco's
proximity to Spain, the flow of peninsular ballads was almost
uninterrupted, whereas, in the Eastern tradition, ballad repertoires
suffered greater isolation. In mid-20th century Israel, where
the earlier Eastern Sephardim community had already constituted an
amalgam of former Ottoman centers prior to 1947, the musical and
thematic contrasts between its collective ballad repertoire and that of
the North African Sephardi settlers, who arrived after 1947, continued
to be reflected in their respective traditions.
Interest in the Judeo-Spanish romancero owes its impetus to
R. Menéndez Pidal's (1869–1968) famous Catálogo del romancero
judio-español, which listed over 140 ballad incipit (representing
themes) then known to be extant in the Sephardim tradition. M. Manrique
de Lara (1868–1929), who worked closely with Menéndez Pidal, was the
first serious collector of the Sephardim musical tradition who traveled
to the major Sephardim communities in the Eastern Mediterranean (from
the latter part of 1910 to the early part of 1911), and later, during
his military expeditions in northern Morocco (during the summers of 1915
and 1916). S.G. Armistead's three-volume catalog, published in 1978,
which supersedes the earlier Catálogo, not only identified
each item from Manrique's massive manuscript collection – housed at the
Menéndez Pidal Archive in Madrid – but added additional themes. In the
United States, S.G. Armistead and Joseph H. Silverman began recording
ballads in Los Angeles (in 1958) among the Sephardi Jewish community
from Rhodes, and a year later were joined by Israel J. Katz, who
collected ballads in Israel (1959–61). The team's continued
collaborative fieldwork in the United States, Morocco, and Israel has
yielded more than 1,500 items, which form the basis of their
multi-volume Judeo-Spanish Ballads from Oral Tradition (1986–
), five volumes of which have been issued to date. Katz's earlier
Judeo-Spanish Traditional Ballads from Jerusalem (1975–76)
documents the musicological researches undertaken until the late 1960s.
Since then important collections and studies, together with recordings,
have been made by Judith R. Cohen, Eleanora Noga Alberti-Kleinbort,
Isaac J. Levy, Ankica Petrovic, Amnon Shiloah, and Susana Weich-Shahak
(whose occasional collaborators include Judith Etzion and Edwin
Seroussi).
(Israel J. Katz)
For the Judeo-Spanish of North Africa, see haketia .
-BIBLIOGRAPHY:
M.L. Wagner, Beitraege zur Kenntnis des Juden-Spanischen von
Konstantinopel (1914); idem, Caracteres generales del
judeo-español de Oriente (1930); M. Luria, A Study of the
Monastir Dialect of Judeo-Spanish (1939); A.S. Yahuda, in:
Revista de filologia Española, 2 (1915), 339–70; J. Benoliel,
in: Boletín de la Real Academia Española, 13–15 (1926–28); 32
(1952); M.A. Luria, in: Revue hispanique, 79 (1930), 323–41;
C.M. Crews, in: Folklore, 43 (1932), 193–225; idem,
Recherches sur le Judéo-espagnol dans les pays balkaniques
(1935); P. Benichou, in: Revista de Filología Hispánica, 7
(1945), 209–58; C. Ramos Gil, in: Oẓar Yehudei Sefarad, 1
(1959), xxxii–xl; A. Zamora
Vicente, Dialectologia española (1960); M. Lazar, in:
Sefunot, 8 (1964), 337–75; M.D. Gaon, Ha-Ittonut
be-Ladino (1965); M. Attias, Romancero Sefaradi (1956);
A. Yaari, Reshimat Sifrei Ladino… (1934); P. Bénichou,
Romances judeo-españoles de Marruecos (1946); M. Alvar,
Endechas judeo-españoles (1953); A. Larrea Palaciń,
Concionero judío de Marruecos, 3 vols. (1952–54). IN
THE 19th AND 20th
CENTURIES: M. Franco, Essai sur l'histoire des
Israélites de l'Empire Ottoman (1897), 269–76; A. Elmaleh, in:
Ha-Shilo'ah, 26 (1912), 67–73; idem, in: Ha-Tor,
4:12 (1923/24), 9f.; M. Molho, in: Saloniki, Ir va-Em
be-Yisrael (1967), 99–102; idem, Literatura sefardita de
Oriente (1960). ROMANCERO MUSICAL TRADITION: I.J.
Katz, Judeo-Spanish Traditional Ballads from Jerusalem: An
Ethnomusicological Study (1971); idem, in: Western
Folklore, 21 (1962), 83–91; idem, in: Ethnomusicology,
12 (1968), 72–85; S.G. Armistead and J.H. Silverman, Judeo-Spanish
Ballad Chapbooks of Yacob Abraham Yoná (1970); Y. Levi, Tesha
Romansot Yehudiyyot Sefardiyyot (music, 1954). ADD.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: D.M. Bunis, in: H. Beinart, Moreshet
Sepharad: The Sephardi Legacy, vol. 2 (1992), 399–422; idem,
A Lexicon of the Hebrew and Aramaic Elements in Modern
Judezmo (1993); idem, Judezmo (1999); C.M. Crews,
Recherches sur le Judéo-espagnol dans les pays balkaniques
(1935); A. García Moreno, Relatos del pueblo ladinán.
Meʿam Loʿez (2004); I.M. Hassán, in:
Estudios Sefardíes, 1 (1978), 147–50; idem, in: M. Seco and
G. Salvador, La lengua española, hoy (1995), 117–40; M.
Luria, A Study of the Monastir Dialect of Judeo-Spanish
(1939); J. Nehama and J. Cantera, Dictionnaire du
Judéo-Espagnol (1977); R. Penny, Variation and Change in
Spanish (2000), 174–93; A. Quintana-Rodríguez, in: Archivo de
Filología Aragonesa, 57–58 (2001), 163–92; idem, in: Revista
de Filología Española, 82 (2002), 105–38; idem, in: Neue
Romania, 31 (2004), 167–92; O. (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald, in:
Peʿamim, 50 (1992), 4–28; M.Ch. Varol-Bornes, in:
W. Busse and M.Ch. Varol-Bornes, Hommage à Haïm Vidal Sephiha
(1996), 213–37; C.M.L. Wagner, Beitraege zur Kenntnis des
Juden-Spanischen von Konstantinopel (1914); idem, Caracteres
generales del judeo-español de Oriente (1930).
MUSIC: R. Menéndez Pidal, "Catálogo del romancero
judio-español," in: Cultura Espñola, 4 (1906), 1045–77; 4
(1907), 161–99; A. Hemsi, Coplas sefardíes (Chan-sons
Judéo-espagnoles) (1932–73); A. de Larrea Palacin, Romances
de Tetuán. Cancionero judío del norte de Marruecos (1952); E.
Gerson-Kiwi, "On the Musical Sources of the Judeo-Hispanic Romance," in:
Musical Quarterly, 50 (1964), 31–43; I.J. Katz,
Judeo-Spanish Traditional Ballads from Jerusalem: An
Ethnomusicological Study (1971); H. Avenary, "Cantos españoles
antiguos mencionados en la literatura hebrea," in: Anuario
Musical, 25 (1971), 67–79; S.G. Armistead, et al., El
romancero judeo-español en el Archivo Menéndez Pidal
(Catálogo-indice de riomances y canciones (1978); S.G.
Armistead, J.H. Silverman, and I.J. Katz, Judeo-Spanish Ballads
from Oral Tradition (1986– ); J. Etzion and S. Weich-Shahak, "The
Spanish and the Sephardic Romancero: Musical Links," in:
Ethnomusicology, 32:2 (1988), 1–37; J. Etzion and S.
Weich-Shahak, "The Music of the Judeo-Spanish Romancero: Stylistic
Features," in: Anuario Musical, 43 (1988), 1–35; S.
Weich-Shahak, Romancero sefardi de Marruecos. Antologa de tradición
oral (1997).

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